In the driver's seat of the 1000-mile-per-hour car

This is the newly completed cockpit of Bloodhound SSC, the British rocket and jet-powered supersonic car that will attempt to reach a speed of 1000 miles per hour (1600 kilometres an hour) in a South African desert in 2015 or 2016.

Centre stage is the 3D-printed titanium steering wheel that has been shaped to fit driver Andy Green's hands and fingers. The array of buttons on the panel controls instruments like the radio, air brakes and parachutes – while triggers on the rear of the handgrips prime and fire the rocket.

The carbon-fibre cockpit's tiny windscreen will not give Green the greatest of views. However, this is for a very good reason: the top of the structure has been designed to create a series of shockwaves that slow the airflow going into the Eurofighter jet engine just above and behind his head. If that wasn't done, supersonic air would reach the jet's fan blades, causing huge changes in pressure that could damage the engine.

The cockpit is armoured, too: even a stone flicked up at 1000 miles per hour could do Green some serious damage.

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